093. Living the SuiteLife with Anna Tan

Connect with the host:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-e-jenkins/

Website: https://www.birchprosper.com/

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About the guest:

Anna Tan is the Co-Founder and Principal of SuiteLifeMF, a real estate investing firm seeking to empower, educate and provide wealth building opportunities to investors. Anna’s diverse roles in engineering, finance, and business development, as well as her unique background in graphic arts, is utilized across the SuiteLifeMF portfolio. Anna has invested in real estate for over 10 years and is currently focused on commercial real estate with a portfolio of over $100M in AUM and over 1,500 units as an LP. She leverages her professional skillset as an engineer to acquire and operate deals in a structured and methodical manner.

Connect with Anna Tan

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuiteLifeMF

Website: https://www.suitelifemf.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/suitelifemf/

Episode Highlights:

✔️ The benefit of early exposure to entrepreneurship

✔️ Scaling from single-family to large multi-family investing

✔️ Educating your network / investors

✔️ Delegating tasks to achieve balance

✔️ Overcoming adversity to succeed in business

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💡 Interested in learning more about opportunities to partner in deals as a passive investor? 

★ Join Our Investor Club ★   https://forms.gle/AEpWgPg7krd8YzPU8 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Success in real estate investing requires balance, and achieving that balance often requires an engineered technical approach to making the most of your time. Speaking of engineering, our guest for today's show leverages her professional skill set as a petroleum engineer to acquire and operate large multifamily properties. You know, when I think of uh the technical skills that most engineers have, I think about process assessment, process management and optimization, I think about scenario and cost analysis. You know, these are all things that are needed and that are necessary for you to thrive as a deal maker in the commercial real estate space. So I want you to listen closely to this discussion as Anna Lee Tan shares her story of pushing through limited beliefs and overcoming adversity to living a life of abundance as a multifamily syndicator. All right, so here she is from Sweet Life Multifamily.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Are you a busy professional in the DMV area looking to invest passively in large multifamily syndication deals? Do you want to meet with other like-minded investors of all experience levels to learn, network, and discuss some amazing investment opportunities? Then look no further than the DMV Apartment Investor Community in-person meetups. Our monthly meetups offer a space for you to connect with other investors, learn from industry experts, and discover lucrative investment opportunities in large multifamily syndication deals. Whether you're an experienced investor or just starting out, our community welcomes everyone who is interested in growing their wealth through passive investing. Join us at the DMV Apartment Investor Community Meetups and take your first step towards financial freedom today. Visit our website now to learn more and register for our next meetup. We'll see you there.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

What would you do if you had the freedom to pursue the things you enjoy the most? How incredible would it feel to have the resources to pursue your passions fully and live life on your terms? This is Brandon Jenkins, host of the Capital Stack Podcast and principal of Birch Prosper. You might have heard that 90% of the world's wealthiest people attribute their wealth to real estate investing. Well, guess what? It's true. Investing in real property continues to be the greatest generator of wealth all over the world. So join us each week on the Capital Stack Podcast to hear about how commercial real estate group investment opportunities can help you reach true financial freedom and give you your time back. Hello, everyone, what's up, and welcome back to the Capital Stack. So we have a great show for you today. I have the honor of speaking with a fellow petroleum engineer turned a real estate investor, although she is still in the oil patch, as we like to call it. Our guest for today is Anna Lee Tan. Anna, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Doing wonderful, Brandon. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Absolutely. Thank you so much for being here. So Anna is a co-founder and principal of Sweet Life Multifamily, a firm whose mission it is to empower, educate, and provide wealth-building opportunities for their community. I love that you and your husband, Peter, launched the firm as true partners in life and business. So I think that's awesome. Anna has invested and operated real estate for over 10 years with a recent focus in commercial real estate. And uh she's not playing around. So Sweet Life Multifamily has a portfolio of$100 million in assets under management. And so they're seeing um the results of hard work and they're seeing real success in this business. So Anna, with that, welcome to the show. Why don't you kind of share just a little bit of detail about your background, your journey, and what got you to this space?

SPEAKER_03 4:05

Absolutely. So my um my parents actually started in real estate, but they did it in a way that they they knew or that they understand. And one of the cool things about real estate is it extends beyond all boundaries and cultures. Everyone understands you buy real estate, you own it, and you you can make a pretty good um living off of it, right? And so that was somewhat um, I would say that was probably my my first um, how would you say it? My my first indicator of real estate, kind of seeing what that could look like. But they only focused on single family homes or residential. And so that was more of the, you know, buy a single family property, you buy it in cash, and then you, you know, make money off of the rent. And it's very small, it's it's not that considerable, but it's enough to um over time in order for you to build your wealth and be able to buy the second property. But following that method takes quite a bit of time. And um, and that's something that because my parents were immigrants, we we didn't really quite understand some of the depth structures, the the opportunities from um a borrowing money uh financial side of aspects. There, there's some other things that you can do in order for you to grow your real estate faster, and that's what we learned and why we wanted to jump into commercial real estate. And so single family homes, that was great because we were hands-on, but it took a lot longer to where we wanted to get to because of it. And recently, when we jumped into real estate, that's when our eyes really opened to the possibilities of growing your real estate portfolio much more quickly. But of course, there's a little bit more risk to it because you're borrowing money, you're um you're essentially broadening your business scope and your financial capabilities have been doing that. But it's been a really great journey. And so right now, where we still manage our single family home portfolio, but we also um, I don't want to say on the side, but part of our time also extends to commercial real estate where we're able to syndicate and bring in our network and our community to jump in on investment opportunities with us. Um, in our journey, what we wanted to understand, or what we wanted to know, or what we always asked before was how do we, you know, we're we're so successful in our real estate, our single family homes, how do we extend that to our friends and families? Like we want them to be a part of the work that we're doing so that they can also be successful too. And that's that's why what we really liked about commercial real estate and syndicating.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing your background there. And I think that I'm on that last point, you know, one of the things that I enjoy about this business is the ability to make an impact um, you know, on the people that we we love and we care about, you make an impact on the community, on the tenants, and certainly on yourselves as well, uh, being able to um increase the velocity of your capital, kind of like what you were talking about there is um economies of scale, speed of capital, velocity of capital, you know, um, you know, being able to sort of leverage um or take advantage of, you know, really, in my opinion, once you scale up, you start to de-risk certain uh elements of the real estate business. And so um I think that's very powerful, you know, and also uh, you know, I I find that having exposure early on to, you know, entrepreneurship in general, but certainly for this business, being able to see that early on and you know, in your in your parents, um, you know, it kind of sets the stage a little bit for, you know, just as something that is not like some, you know, it's not a boogeyman, it's not something that's like, you know, if you invest in this, then you're gonna lose it all and this kind of thing. And and I think it certainly helps to have someone that you can say, oh yeah, they're doing this. This is a business, and it's um, and they're running it as a business, and it works because a lot, there are a lot of people who let that stop them. You know, they hear about the stories where it didn't work. I mean, like anything else, there's no guarantees, but um, some people let that stop them. And so having that that um experience early on, I believe, is something that would that would greatly benefit you. Did you find that that's where you know it made it a little bit easier to conceptualize, oh yeah, this is you know, it's real estate investing. Of course it works.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Well, I I think for me, the fact that my parents were able to do it and come here with not understanding English or not knowing the language, not knowing the culture, and they were able to be successful in real estate and within their own business, it it kind of and for when I was a child, I I took it for granted what they were able to do. And um, when I became older, that's what really when we started doing real estate. When I became older, I appreciated that. Like I was like, wow, they they were able to basically have a business in real estate, able to do all these things, and they came over with with nothing. And so if they were able to do that, and like what what can I do? Like, what should I be able to do? And so there's this inherent, um, I don't know, this this inherent goal that maybe with when I became a little older, I was like, man, I I really needed to look into this because that wasn't something that my parents really talked about as much. It was just kind of like an understanding I observed from the background. But once I got into it um years later, like beginning, beginning when I first started, it was scary because you had less capital to you know put into investment opportunities. Everyone's telling you you should do this, you should do that, or don't do that. That's not a great idea. So you have all this information coming in, but as an adult or young adult, you have to filter out what is what is what work would work for you, what's appropriate. And it's it's just a learning, it's a journey. And it doesn't matter at what age or how you're exposed to real estate. Ufortunately for us, um, I had that early exposure, but it could have just stopped there. I could have just said, like, oh, I saw it, I'm gonna step away. But instead, I became curious and wanted to dig into a little bit deeper. And so far that's been part of our journey.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a that's a good point because even even though you you saw it early on, you could have decided to go the opposite direction. And that happened some sometime as well. So um that's that's a great point. Um, and so I want to talk too about the the shift from single family to to multifamily, because there's a lot of times in making that that adjustment, that shift, it can be uh there's a lot of friction there. Um and I I did the same thing myself. So I started off on the single family side and went over to the multifamily space. Part of the reason why I'm I'm saying that it couldn't can be friction is because you wear all the hats when you're a single family investor and um you you run the show. And normally when you have things dialed in, um, it can be difficult to then step into a space where you have to start to all you know offload or hand off some some of the tasks that that you took on yourself. Um, and so it's not always easy, you know, it's counterintuitive because you would think that if you bring all the hats on one side, when you now have a team, it becomes easier to say, boy, I can you know take a load off and kind of hand some of this out. But it's not always that easy. Sometimes you're like, well, this person is doing this in a way that I wouldn't, you know. And so so how how was that transition for you? Did you find it um how you just how how did that how did that go for you?

SPEAKER_02 11:41

So I would say it's it's a definitely a learning process.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

It's very different because you're so used to maybe doing everything, almost everything yourself. And you know once you do it, you'll get it, it'll get done. In the commercial side, it's just so much bigger. So it's almost like coming from a very, very small business to uh working in corporate is kind of my analogy. And when you're in corporate, it's just so many more hands, there's so so many more things to consider, a lot more risks, regulations, a lot, and again, a lot more tenants um, you know, on the property too. So we're not we're going from one to maybe 300, you know, plus or minus. And so that that change is is very different and it makes you think about things in a more um maybe strategic level, like what like how can you really impact what's what um the project? Or you look at maybe the the very high important things, like, okay, in my role, where are the needle movers? And you know, I'm not gonna be the the person that's calling the AC guy to come out, right? Like that's um my role in the big entire project is is much more higher, it's more strategic, it's more impactful in a different way. And and so it's really understanding roles and when you have to step in um and be a little bit more hands-on, or maybe be able to kind of step step back once things get a little bit more stabilized. So it's a little bit of trying to feel out the rest of the team, the property management company, um, understanding the financials differently because again, when you're a single family home, it's very, I would say much more straightforward, much more simpler. The PL is much more simpler. Commercial, it's it is commercial, it's more like corporate. You have a lot of different things going on. You're dealing with um higher, higher debt, you're dealing with, you know, lenders. It's so that there's a lot more going on in that space. And um it's different for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, one of the things that I like to share with people who have some single family experience and that are considering the shift is um, you know, usually on the single family side, you can sort of stop at at cash flow. You know, once you once you get, you know, your NOI and then you get you back out your debt service and and then you're now at the cash flow line, you typically are going to focus heavily on on that piece there. But once you start to get into commercial and certainly syndication, your concern is return to investors. So you have a few more steps that you have to um take in order to analyze the deal. And a lot of times, you know, that that uh those extra steps right there might kill the deal, you know. Sure, at the project level, cash flow might be strong, but what does it look like at the investor level? Um, so and even that that gap right there, you know, and that's aside from, like you said, all the the PL itself is very complicated. But even when you get down to that portion, just talking about the returns based on whatever the structure is, um, that can be super complicated as well. Um, so there's something that, you know, in your in your mission, I'm uh as I mentioned in the intro there, that for you it's about making an impact on friends and family and your in your community. The friends and family piece piece is is interesting to me because I I find that it's almost like a it's almost 50-50. Some people have a really good sort of solid base of friends and family to where they can um you know convey the concept and the idea and everyone's on board, um, especially on the you know when it comes to uh contributing capital. But then on the other side, it maybe doesn't go as smoothly. Um, and so did what was your experience like there? Did you have to actually uh was it already pretty well understood because you maybe have a circle of people who are savvy investors, or did you have to do some educating and coaching to get them to warm up to the idea?

SPEAKER_03 15:29

Definitely some educating and coaching. Um, I think because we were doing single family, we were generating real estate for so long already, a lot of our circle already understood that, at least, at least the the tighter circle. But you are right, we did have to expand to that, including like our coworkers and our peers and in that sort of sort of group. But I think because of our work ethic within our specific companies, they were able to see that and translate as well. And so it was a mix of maybe hand-on-hand personal experience or knowing that we've had um been investing doing real estate for so long that it was a little easier to discuss why we think this is a great opportunity and why we want them to be a part of um be part of our journey as well and jump into the opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that this is kind of a um, it really is an education-based type of um of investment. And we're talking about syndication at least. Um, you know, and that's one thing that I would like to just say for the listeners as well, is that if you are so you're someone who's either on the active side or your uh that's your your goal is you have to keep that in mind, is that um, you know, it's education-based. And so it's not one of those things where it's very uh where everyone is is familiar with it and has has done it, it doesn't get quite as much um uh uh I don't know, notice or or news or what call what have you as say the stock market or something like that. And so you then do have to step in and say, okay, here's how it's done, here's how we work, here's how we identify markets, here is the capital stack, and here's how it plays out for you as an investor, all these things. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

So let me kind of add a comment to that. So my so Peter told me about syndications uh probably five years before we actually jumped into our first one. And this is with us already having been familiar with real estate. And again, syndication is completely different in terms of if you've never been a part of it, it it's it's different. Um, but it took us five years. And it wasn't because they were bad or wrong, it was just because I was unwilling at the time to really take time to understand uh what that opportunity looked like. I mean, I was like, you know, life, and I'm like, you know, we just had our first child. I'm like, I'm not ready to to like I just did not have the capacity to bring in something else, right? Just being a new mom, uh new parent for the first time. And so once I think um it came to a certain point, I think it was with their second, I was like, oh, okay. I did not understand that. I didn't understand that there's a passive component to it because we've you know started to build capital, we've been working longer, and we had we we didn't know what to do with our money. Like I didn't, you know, stocks were hot, but it was like, are you really gonna put all your eggs in one basket? And I I think for anyone, that's probably a terrible idea, right? Because, you know, you you wanna um, if you kind of look at Warren Buffett, like he likes to have a diversified portfolio and let's kind of learn from people that are more successful than us. And so, yeah, it took us a really long time before we jumped in and um no regrets after we did that. And so again, part of that is educating and when you're really open to the possibilities, you'll be surprised and you'll be surprised at at what what's out there.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yeah, I think so as well. I mean, it's it's interesting the the private um uh private entity or private investment landscape has expanded drastically. Like I've I I forgot what the number was, I might have to look it up, but um I think in 2022, like the the uh amount of capital that went to private investments, private offerings was um just incredibly substantial. I'm gonna look that up in a second, but it's just a really, really high number. So you're seeing this growth in terms of investor interest capital um that's being pushed into this market. So it it definitely is worth, you know, for the business, it's certainly worthwhile um to make sure you have an understanding of this space because it just opens your, I mean, you can, you know, precious metals, you know, alternative types of investments, you have campgrounds, you're multifamily, so all these things, storage, I mean, uh oil and gas, private investment. So I mean, just it's a huge world that um that is available to you, you know, once you kind of dig into it and make sure you understand the end of the house. Um, and so you mentioned something uh briefly there um that you said you had just you know recently had a you know a child at the time. And so it, you know, that kind of factored in as well. And so I'd like to actually talk about that, right? So you're a busy professional, you're a mother of of two, and you operate two companies. So how do you how do you do it all? How do you find kind of the balance um and and still and still make it happen, which is very impressive? How do you do it?

SPEAKER_02 20:28

We're still working on it.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

Um, I I'd say number one is communication with Peter, and that I'm it it's it's still a journey. We're still working on, you know, defining roles through the years. We we've definitely discovered, you know, what Peter likes to do in the business, what I like to do, and then offloading whatever we don't like uh to someone else. And so that's been a big help, but you you just have to let go some of the things that you're just unwilling to do. Simple example. Um, we recently found out, so in in our area, there's a laundry service, and I used to pride myself in being able to do laundry because that's what my parents did, and you know, that was kind of like the culture, I guess. But it like seriously eats up maybe two hours a week, maybe more or less, depending on you know what's going on. But we're able to offload that to someone else, uh another service to do that, and that frees us mental capacity to spend time with our families, which is more important, or even spend time with their business, whatever it is. But at least we're trying to uh find more time in our day in order to do more things that we want to do. And that's been a really big at least cultural shift within our family. Um, another example so H E B, you know, Texas, it's a pretty big supermarket chain here. Um Um, I know in COVID they started the well, you can order online and and they'll they'll take it out to your to your car. I resisted doing that because I actually found going through the the supermarkets therapeutic in a way, but other times I did not. And so I always like, well, I don't like you know, people picking my vegetables and I made all these excuses. And then once I kind of looked into it, I was saving maybe 45 minutes to an hour and a half every week. So it was just like little things like that, because you know, I I wasn't open to it before. I was very resistive, but once Peter's like, hey, this would actually give us more time back, like you're not, you know, walking back and front forth from you know, 110 degree Houston, you know, Texas, uh, Midland, Texas weather. And so just finding being a little bit more open to change, um, kind of being more flexible to the needs of our family, and just having a um, just being more open to the possibilities is what really helped. And of course, trying to set up, you know, doing all the business stuff, like trying to set up processes, trying to set up, you know, what works. And end of the day, Peter, like I, you know, Peter and I are a team. And so whenever he may suggest something that I disagree, it's I just have to, you know, remind ourselves, like, hey, he like he's not coming from a bad place, like he's coming from a positive place of intent. And so with that, that really leaves um your mind open to the possibilities. So I think when you keep doing that, it it just kind of makes life more fun and makes the journey of doing everything more fun. But yeah, it's it's still a balancing act with kids, um, family, job, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think I think you're right though, the way that you you said it though, is you know, stepping back and kind of saying, okay, we're on the same team, and you know, we might have differences of opinion and maybe things that we would execute differently. But it's like, you know, when we the two of you, when you kind of stop and say, you know what, wait, hold on a second. You know, even though we're we're having a sort of an opposition of of thought or approach or philosophy on this one thing, we're still very much on the same team. And so, you know, let's let's at least evaluate whatever is being discussed with through that lens. Um, I think that's that's very important. And I'll also throw something in here. I'm in the DC area. I lived in Houston for 10 years. HEB is incredible. And so so I don't I don't blame you for kind of missing going through HEV, um, one of the best uh chained uh grocery store chains that I've ever been in.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

So but um Yeah, now now I don't even I don't even miss miss going through it. It's it's it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Oh my goodness. Um okay, so there's one thing that I wanted to talk about, and you actually have touched on this um a couple of times, is uh overcoming uh barriers to success or perceived barriers to success. And so as a successful uh second generation um immigrant family and a female minority, you know, I think you have a very powerful story. So what can you kind of maybe share with someone who um is l is listening to this, but let's say they have a similar history, you know. So what what can you share with them on ways to succeed in in this space?

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yeah, so uh so I I would say um maybe it's part of my upbringing, maybe it's kind of part of the female Asian um, at least my understanding of what that should be. And I I think when I grew up or when I was growing up, I felt that being who I am, I had to fit a certain mold. You know, um being maybe female, that the finances should be left to the husband, because that's how it was set up in my household. Or, you know, the male needs to make all the the financial decisions and the female only focuses on the household work, which is why it took a while to get rid of the laundry and and you know the shopping for a little bit. Um it's different from you know, if you enjoy it, that's great, but if you don't, like it doesn't have to be part of your responsibility. Like there, there's ways to work around it. And so that took a while, um, I would say more recently, for me to really be okay with, hey, I'm I'm an entrepreneur. Um, that label was very, that label was something that I was not very comfortable associated, associating myself with for a very variety of reasons. But once I was able to break through that and say, it doesn't matter how my parents' generation grew up or how it was in our household. What matters is today and what I want to do and moving forward on where I want to be. And so for me, once I was able to break through that, I was able to really step into you know the syndication, the multifamily um our company and say, hey, this is this from a strategy standpoint, this is what we need to do. And I I loved it. I love being basically the CEO of my life, the CEO of our company, and being able to have um strategy discussions about where our life needs to go and where our company needs to go with Peter. Like it's it's it's such a different way of thinking from from what I grew up. Because when you grow up in your environment, that's just all you know. Unless you're exposed to a lot of different things, that you're just limited on that, right? Unless you kind of start exploring different different options. And um, so I would kind of give that advice. Like if if you have this maybe little itch or you don't feel like where you are in life right now is where you want to be, you can always change it. It doesn't matter what your situation or circumstances, it it shouldn't be held back. You shouldn't be held back uh because of that.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Yeah, that that's um that's an incredibly powerful point right there. Um you know, it's something that is challenging for people to fully grasp, but once they do, it's like once you see it, you can't unsee it. And it we we literally have the opportunity every day to wake up into a new reality. Um and and again, it sounds it's it's one of those things that like I said, before I I went down sort of this the path of personal development, personal growth, and all these things, I would have thought it was just a bunch of you know, mumbo jumbo and but but the the truth of it is you really can wake up and say, okay, here's here's who I want to be, here's what I want to aspire toward. Here are the things I want to leave behind. I want to leave yesterday is gone, I want to leave them in yesterday, and I don't want to continue them anymore. And I want to start on to this journey toward success, this journey toward health, wealth, and everything else. Um, and I mean it in a very practical sense, you know, like so. So for someone who maybe, you know, if if you've been considering getting into the real estate investing space and you want to start generating passive income, you know, but uh the people who you associate with, they're very negative about it. And maybe they tell you that no matter what, you you can't do it because of your profession or because of your background or something else. You literally tomorrow morning can wake up and say no more and then pull up your computer and look on meetup.com or something like that, find a local group in your area of people who are like-minded and who are doing what you want to do, go go to their to that meetup and then off you go. So it it's it's um, you know, I don't want to simplify the complexities of our lives, but what you said is very accurate, Anna, that you really can wake up or you really can just have you know a new existence. You just have to pursue it. Now it takes action and it takes decision. Um, but you there's no need to be stuck stuck in the past. You don't have to live the next you know, month the way you lived the previous month. Um, so it's just how it is, you know.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Yeah, there there's been some up well, there's been some opportunities, real estate opportunities that we missed because we listened to people that we thought were experts. Right. And you know, there's just so much information out there, and you really have to filter out what you think is best and what works for you. But there's just um, and I still think about I'm like, ah, if only, if only. But um but again, you learn from that experience or those experiences that you either missed, or maybe even if you did pursue something in um in a way, maybe you lost an investment, but at least it's still a learning opportunity, and um you'll be able to to do better the next time. So there's there there's a lot of um taking action is is definitely important in order for you to to move forward. But again, it's it's not really and it's to me, it's not what's important is not the end game, it's how do you get there? And and so I think when I was younger, you know, we kind of had this goal of well, you know, million net worth by whatever, whatever, right? And that's Peter's that was Peter's goal, but I was like, yeah, sure, that sounds great, whatever. But if all you focused was that one metric and you never really enjoyed the journey to get there, I mean, what type of life is that, right? Like um, there's more more to life than that. And so, you know, you you had asked earlier about how do we balance all this other stuff. And yeah, there's could be, you know, 20 things I need to do for our business, but when the little one asked me to read, you know, Ariel for the hundredth time, all right, let's be aerial, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

So yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, that's that that's right. I mean, yeah, it's it's the the journey is very important, you know, and certain certainly the vision and the the goal is important, but if if you're so focused on that that you forget to enjoy yourself along the way, you know, you'll you you get there and then you look up and and you think, okay, now I'm ready to relax. But it's like, well, you've missed, I mean, years and years of you know, of things that are that should have been important to you that were important to your children. So yeah, it's it's um that's a very important thing to focus on, is enjoying the the now, enjoying the present, being present, um, and and then and then certainly continuing to push to push forward toward your goal, but be be present, I think is just very, very important. Um and so uh uh on the topic of, you know, I want to talk about building relationships. Um, because you you've successful successfully excuse me, raise capital like on a predictable basis for your deals. And so, you know, I think that being a capital raiser is kind of one of the number one sought-after skills as an entrepreneur, really. I mean, certainly as in this uh business, but just in general as an entrepreneur, if you can source and and source quality uh capital and raise capital, it's it's a very powerful thing. Um, but it comes from building relationships and yielding positive results for your investors. And so, what what tips can you kind of share on building uh intimate connections, genuine connections with your network?

SPEAKER_03 33:18

I would say it um it takes time. And I think one, you have to understand the product. Like what are you trying to communicate and do you fully understand the risks um moving forward, right? So, you know, um, do you have skin in the game? Are you willing to put the money where you know your mouth is? And so all these things kind of factor in and um it it doesn't happen overnight, it's it's part of kind of like the journey, but you're setting yourself up for disappointment if you think you know all your friends, all your family will will put it in, right? But if you feel really strongly about something, your friends will see that. If your friends see that or your community sees that you know your logic is sound, then they will jump in as well. So to me, I think a good investment is based on logic. I mean, right, it's based on numbers and logic. So if you're able to explain what that sounds like or what that looks like, then it's a lot easier to maybe raise the capital or influence other people to jump in as well. There's a there's a part of us as well, I think it's maybe 10 or maybe 20 to 30 percent of us that are maybe a little bit more emotionally connected to projects. And you know, if if that's something that you're naturally inclined, you really have to work hard on the logic side to make sure that the numbers will pay out so that you do get the yield for your investors because ultimately that's that's what counts. Um, but if you if it's it's all based on emotions, oh, this is a great deal, I love it. You should jump in because we're friends, that that's not gonna fly.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

No.

SPEAKER_03 35:01

End of the day, no one's gonna, you know, give you cash, just especially now if you lose money on it.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

So it so it really depends on what your current skill set is or what you're naturally inclined. And if you're not really good in maybe the logic space, or maybe you don't understand the debt markets, or whoever it whatever it is, find someone that can explain it to you, or someone on the project team should be really strong in that space. So that like right now, the um the debt market, financial markets is so volatile. But if you have uh maybe one or two people that are really strong in that space that naturally love doing that, then they can provide better guidance um for that project as things move forward. So so you kind of want to be able to uh leverage your strengths, but also leverage your team so that you can either communicate the right things or understand the project in a way that connects with your investors.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yeah, absolutely. I think I think that kind of being able to um have a clear logical kind of approach and flow to what you're doing is important. And it's you know, it's interesting too, though, that um, you know, having an emotional connection to the to the deal, it's it's one of those things where you know when we were talking about having a a team, um, you know, especially in the syndication space, it's like sure, there might be some you know, room for you know one of the members of the team to be sort of more uh about the story. Uh, but it's like you have to have, you can't have everyone on the team can't can't be all excited about the story to the point where they forget about the mechanics. You know, I mean, because the truth is when you're when you're trying to connect with someone and get them interested in the deal, um, there are a lot of people who are attracted to, okay, what's the story behind this? Um, and if they trust you and it's a good story, you know, you've you've done quite a bit of the work and required to get them very interested in it. But you absolutely have to have the nuts and bolts and mechanics because you only get that only work maybe one time, you know, but and then you get into the deal, and if it doesn't work out, that's it. And so um, you know, so yeah, I think that's a that's an excellent point. It's like, yeah, have feel good about it, but but don't feel so good that you forget to run the numbers, you know, and have a tight approach to it. Um, yeah, good. So um, so I do have to ask, I mean, you, you know, uh, you're you're like I mentioned uh earlier, you you you're in the oil field and and uh for the benefit of the of the listeners, what what do you do in the oil field? And I'm also and also just kind of curious to know what kind of uh corporate experience uh you've had that maybe has helped in this business.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Yeah, so um so my background is petroleum engineering, and so what I do is essentially help uh find or optimize the best way to get oil and gas out of the ground is kind of the the short answer. In my current role, I actually do a little bit more development um strategy, like based on our numbers today, where should we go next? So that's kind of been that's my current job, which is which is a lot of fun. And from a how do how does this translate to our to real estate? So, like I mentioned earlier, I love being able to strategize where do we go next, kind of seeing, taking a step back, seeing the big picture. Um, what's our six-month view, what's our one-year view, what's the plan? And so being very flexible in terms of um kind of zooming in on the project, like what do we need to do to succeed in the next month, and being able to take a step back, are we still on the projection that we want to be? So to me, it's it's a lot of fun um doing that. But um kind of along those lines, one of the reasons why I think one of the reasons why I diversify, re-diversify into real estate is because you know, we don't think that just having your W-2 or corporate job is sufficient, um, especially in this day and age. Because I I want to add a little bit more stability for a family's you know, wealth, um, add a little bit diversity in our investment portfolio. Because when you enter the corporate world, all you know is 401k. Um, you might learn about stocks because of 401k, or maybe you were exposed to it in high school, because I know I did an economics class, but no one tells you about real estate, no one tells you about the private investments. And so that takes a little bit of work if you want to expand beyond, you know, the the bonds and treasuries and maybe the easy stuff. Um and you know, fight there, there are financial advisors, but I don't think they always I don't think they tell you about the private investments and they don't tell you about real estate, right? Because they want to make sure you stay in this the stock portfolio because that's where they make their money, essentially. So you you just have to um it's really just being aware of what else is out there and how are the rich getting rich. Like if you uh I read an article earlier this year, and um uh I I don't remember the exact number, but basically the super wealthy people invest in real estate, and that's how they become wealthy, right? So so if you're if you're not in real estate, you you might be missing some opportunities because that's that's what uh the wealthy people are doing.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Absolutely. And then and that's that's all over the world, by the way. There's a there's a um a report that's uh literally called, I think the I think it's called the World Wealth Report, I think is what it's called, but it's by uh um Knight Frank. And um, and every year they publish this report to see what the the what high net worth individuals and even ultra high net worth individuals invest in. And there's always like this almost 30 percent um allocated toward real estate, with the the vast majority of that being uh commercial real estate. So very important. Um and and I'd like to the point that you made about uh security, you know, if you have a W-2 um if and if you enjoy it outstanding, you always have to have a thought for security um financially, building wealth and these sorts of things. And what I like to share with people is um, you know, if you kind of think for a moment how good it would feel um to work because you genuinely want to work and not because you have to work financially, you know, think about the headspace that that puts you in. You know, then you get to fully and totally and completely enjoy, you know, the people you work with, the projects you work on. Because, you know, uh I like to, I'm not one of those people who, you know, I don't I don't badge you know, WT jobs. I think they're incredible. I think that you get to meet some amazing people. I think that the the range of projects you that you can work on are incredible because you simply don't have the opportunity to work on the same level and scale of projects if you go off and do something um on your own. You know, you have you know, it so it's just there are there are all sorts of reasons why uh it makes sense to do it. But but but getting to the point where you have the option to do so is something that just is a beautiful position to be in. Um so that's one thing I like to share with people. And by the way, I mean, I I one of the reasons I always ask, you know, about profess people's profession and if you have time in corporate America, how are you leveraging those skill sets is because I think that it's very applicable. I think that the things that you learn in the corporate space, into, you know, you have interfunctional or a multifunctional team based projects. You have large capital projects, you mentioned because you're doing it, sounds like business development and kind of maybe some asset uh uh management or asset planning, field planning. All right. And so um having a vision for the the long uh term goal of the of the asset, the value of the asset, you know, with the decisions that we're making today, how that impacts the the value on the street of the asset. So um things that are very valuable, you know, you know, in this uh space. And so I just think that's um, you know, awesome. And thank you, thanks for sharing that.

SPEAKER_03 43:01

So yeah, yeah, just to kind of uh extend on that. So, you know, one of our now this was a couple of years ago, but I worked on one asset, it was just one particular project, but I I think the project was somewhere between 20 to 30 million within, you know, one and one and a half months of work, essentially. Um, or maybe it was like six months to be exact, but you know, 20, 30 million, and you know, that's kind of the the playhouse that we're playing um on, and that was like a smaller scale. And so we kind of step back into real estate or commercial real estate, you know, single family homes, they're the project scale is much smaller, right? Like a couple hundred for this, maybe at most, couple, maybe a couple thousand for a higher end project. And so being able to be very comfortable and working in the million dollar space is very transferable to the commercial real estate because it's not like, ooh, 500,000. I I don't know about that. And so it's uh makes it more palatable when you're you're working commercial.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

It it really does. It does. You're much more comfortable with understanding the the scale and magnitude of those of those numbers and then and also treating it with treating it with respect as opposed to being afraid of it. You know, some people when they come up against those kinds of numbers, then fear takes over and they say, oh, I don't want anything to do with that. I don't want to, you know, handle people's money because it's too much money. But if you are if you have that background and you're like, okay, yeah, we'll we'll we'll approach this in a way that's level headed, we're run some sensitivities, make sure we have the numbers dialed in, you're much more comfortable than um stepping into a project like that. I think that's very uh a a very good point. Um so what's what's uh what's next for Sweet Life Multifamily? What are you guys working on at the at the moment? What's your what's your direction?

SPEAKER_03 44:46

So we're still underwriting. Um that's actually something that Peter enjoys we're looking at deals weekly talking to brokers um but still still trying to look for a property that we'll be able to take a lead on that's our ultimate goal we're we're co-GPs on several other properties but we love to step in and be more of a a primary role in our next one. It's been interesting. The market is I wouldn't say heavily saturated that's not that's not how it was that's how it was maybe a couple years ago but there's definitely some um interest and that there are some opportunities but we just haven't quite found the uh the right one yet.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

Yeah yeah no it's you're right I think this is definitely a good time to um you know I ironically I I like to share with people I mean you you all have a good a good bit of experience there but also share with people who are even maybe brand new to um you know maybe they've done some passive investing as a limited partner and they're wanting to switch switch to the active side as a general partner I like to share with them that you know right now listen this is a time to really focus in on those brokers and pick up you know pick up the phone start calling those brokers start building those relationships because they're getting uh fewer calls than they were two years ago and so now's the time you know before they might have hung up the phone on on you but now but now they'll actually kind of you know uh talk to you for a little while so for people who are newer you know this this is the time to start really focusing in on that focusing in on getting your network warm um you know because when the when the action starts to pick back up again you want to be well positioned um to take care of that so um good good this is this is this is you know been incredible so uh we're getting kind of close to to close uh Anna and um you know I like to ask this is kind of the actionable tip portion of the show so for someone who is listening to this and they're inspired um and they're ready to take you know action maybe they've been hesitating in the past but they're ready now what's something that they can do to sort of take action now and I'll say as a passive investor to get started.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

Yeah so you know if if any of my story resonates with the viewer listener, you know, feel free to connect with us. We're at sweetlifemf.com and love to talk more, see if you know commercial real estate is the right path for you or even if you want to pick up brains about single family homes or anything real estate, uh love to do that as well. But you know just really learning about what the opportunities are um how much are you willing to or able to put in into a certain investment and just being open minded to to that um and just continuing on like let's just start at one point and the more you learn the more you're able to to figure it out. There's a lot of opportunities there just to even understand or educate. So I know Brandon you have a a a good channel so that's definitely one avenue there. But there's also conferences there's meetups um you know you're like Brandon your meetup if you're in the DC local area that there's just a lot of opportunities to to connect with people. So just keep trudging along until you kind of figure out what your right maybe tribe is and uh and and just go.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

Absolutely just get just get going. I I like that too to to reach out you know figure out kind of who um fits really well with you and I mean that's that's how I got my start when I was in Houston I went to meetups and connected really well with people and then started to invest in their deals and that's just um you know it's kind of how it goes that we you get a firsthand view of how you know that potential sponsor how they treat people how they look at deals you know how they how do they treat you with respect all these kinds of things so very very important uh point and so if um it I know you you just mentioned yeah I think your website and email address is there any other maybe channel or social media anything where where the listeners can sort of reach out to you and see more of you or hear hear about you.

SPEAKER_03 48:39

Yeah so uh we're also on Facebook and LinkedIn um our LinkedIn is a little bit more active it's at sweetlifemf.com as well and we regularly post articles and different uh different things for our for our network and um so we'd love to connect through there as well and just looking forward to to meeting more people.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

All right all right perfect we'll put that in the show notes and again Anna um always a pleasure thank you so much for uh for your time and for adding value uh to the listeners and to myself thank you as always thank you so much for tuning in to the show today brought to you by Bridge Prosper if you enjoyed today's episode and you'd like to learn more about commercial real estate investing please like subscribe and share and we'll see you again next week I'm Brandon Jenkins and this is the Capital Stack where we help you learn apply and prosper